Robert D. Habich taught nineteenth-century American literature, biography writing, and literary research methods at Ball State for 33 years. The author or editor of five academic books and numerous scholarly articles and presentations, he is the Past President of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society, which awarded him its Distinguished Achievement Award in 2014.
Professional Experience
Professor of English
Ball State University (Associate, 1987-92; Assistant, 1984-87)
2008 Interim Chairperson
Department of English, Ball State University
Acting Dean
Graduate School, Ball State University, 1996-98
Director of Graduate Programs in English
Ball State University, 1987-96
Education
Ph.D. in English
Pennsylvania State University, 1982
M.A. in English
Colorado State University, 1976
B.A. in English
SUNY at Stony Brook, 1973
Research and Publications
Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. with introduction and notes. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press, 2018.
"Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Transcendentalism," in American Literary Scholarship 2014: An Annual, ed. David J. Nordloh. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2016, pp. 3-20.
“An ‘Extempore Adventurer’ in Italy: Emerson as International Tourist” in A Power to Translate the World: New Essays on Emerson and International Culture, ed. David LaRocca and Ricardo Miguel-Alfonso. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2015, pp. 97-112.
“Biography,” in Ralph Waldo Emerson in Context, ed. Wesley T. Mott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 257-264.
Building Their Own Waldos: Emerson’s First Biographers and the Politics of Life-Writing in the Gilded Age. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2011.
Robert Habich CV (PDF)